"Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar was inspired at least partly by the donkey anecdote told by Dostoevsky's Prince Myshkin. Robert Bresson's Balthazar is a donkey born, like all beings, to suffer and die needlessly and mysteriously. Hence, the Russian roulettish au hasard in both the title and the arbitrary fragmentation of the framing...." (Andrew Sarris). Balthazar, the donkey, is the central character of Bresson's film; passed from one owner to the next, he is both witness to and victim of their stories, their suffering and their violence. The other main figure in the film is a young farm girl (Anne Wiazemsky) who befriends Balthazar and suffers some of his fate. Bresson was interested not only in the Biblical side of the donkey--his patience, his humility--but in the Greek and Roman concept of the donkey as a symbol of sexuality. Thus Au Hasard Balthazar is an extraordinarily sensual film in addition to being "a sublime illumination of innocence too profound for this world" (Tom Luddy), and "a morbidly beautiful flower of cinematic art" (Andrew Sarris).